Tag Archives: spying

Iran confirmed on Sunday that an appeals court had upheld 10-year jail terms against a U.S. citizen, two Iranian-Americans and a U.S. resident from Lebanon who had been convicted on spying charges. In July, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that Iran would face “new and serious consequences” unless all “unjustly detained” American citizens were released and returned. Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi identified the four as Princeton University student Xiyue Wang, Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his elderly father Baquer and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen with permanent U.S. residency, the judiciary’s official news website reported.

An Iranian court has sentenced a graduate student from Princeton University to 10 years in jail on spying charges, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said on Sunday, the latest case involving dual citizens held on security charges in the country. Xiyue Wang, 37, was accused of “spying under the cover of research,” said Mizan, the Iranian judiciary’s official news site. Wang was born in China but was naturalized as an American citizen.

The CIA has named the hardline chief of its hunt for Osama bin Laden and head of its lethal drone program to lead Iran operations, the New York Times reported Friday. The choice of Michael D’Andrea to run the Central Intelligence Agency’s spying on Iran is the newest sign of the Trump administration’s turn to tougher stance against the Islamic Republic, the Times said, quoting intelligence community sources. Although officially under cover and not acknowledged by the CIA, D’Andrea, a convert to Islam who is around 60 years old, has been a key figure in the fight against Islamic extremists groups.

China has demanded the US reverse the deployment of an anti-missile defence system aimed at preventing a strike by North Korea on its southern neighbour, saying it could be used as a tool for spying. Beijing says its opposition to the stationing of a THAAD unit in South Korea is based on concerns that it could interfere with its own military operations. The defence system, situated on a former golf course in the southern province of Seongju, has reached initial operational capacity.

The White House has contritely reached out to Britain after infuriating that close ally by recycling a Fox News commentator’s charge that the U.K. spied on President Trump in 2016 at Barack Obama’s request, officials in Washington and London said Friday. Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, assured his counterpart by telephone that the White House had not meant to endorse the claim. White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who touched off the unusual diplomatic controversy on Thursday, did the same in a conversation with Britain’s ambassador to Washington.